


No Man Can Serve Two Masters

by yuletide_archivist



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slight warning for language and a bit of violence, this piece is a sort of a character study on the Ben Wade/Charlie Prince/Dan Evans angle, and what might have been the thought processes going through each of their heads on that fateful day in Contention, Arizona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Man Can Serve Two Masters

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to Crystal (wordsthatfail) for an excellent and lightning quick beta.
> 
> Written for Mia Ugly

 

 

**Charlie**

_"Morning, Pinkerton. Name's Charlie Prince. I expect you heard of me."_

"Well, I heard of a balled-up whore named Charlie Princess. That you, missy?"

"I hate Pinkertons."

He was a small man who carried himself like his surname was more than a word - a title, royalty - his attitude that of the upper crust of the dregs. While Wade may have been the boss of the outfirst, the King, the ruler with an iron fist who demanded perfection, Charlie was indeed the Prince. The man ready and waiting to step in should the boss be called away, or if something should happen...

Which it had.

The ride to Contention was long, given the pace they had to keep to, and then fact that those damn boys up in the Chinese railroad camp had given them trouble. Posses were worse than Pinkertons, in his opinion, because _most_ Pinkertons at least followed some words of their law. Men who rode for nothing but money; the fame, and the satisfaction brought by the sight of an outlaw dangling at the end of a braided hemp rope were often times no better than the outlaws themselves - backstabbing, lying, cheating sons of bitches who didn't give a damn about who they blew past to get to their men. If they weren't so _irritating_ then Charlie might have liked them, but all they did was get in the way.

Things worked a certain way for a reason.

Now that way was in jeopardy.

He hadn't noticed - or considered the prospect at all, honestly - that Boss might not have been completely against the idea of Dan Evans continuing to breathe and walk above the soil rather than rot and waste away beneath it. Not until he heard the murmurs among the few English speakers at that railroad camp outside down. Seemed that Dan Evans had worked to free Ben Wade from that posse, and they'd worked _together_ to escape, blowin' up a tunnel in the process.

 _'They were awful good 'bout that,'_ one man had said.

 _'Did you see the way they was lookin' at each other?"_ asked another. _'Like they was fightin' on the same side.'_

**Dan**

_"I ain't stubborn."_

"What?"

"Earlier, you called me stubborn for keeping my wife and sons on a dying ranch. When Mark was two, he got tuberculosis. Doctor said we should get him to a drier climate."

"Why are you tellin' me this?"

"I don't know. I guess I just wanted you to know... I ain't stubborn."

He was a one-legged rancher, ex-solider who'd fought in the Civil War, wounded three years prior and who had spent those last three years on that dying ranch in the arid desert of the Arizona Territory just to try and _save_ his dying son. He wasn't a hero, or a gunslinger. His pants were patched with scraps of denim and his shirts were mended by the careful hands of his loyal wife. Dan Evans did not wear a shiny pistol at his hip or a ivory coat made of bone-colored leather, and he certainly didn't walk down the boarded sidewalks in town like he owned all the land those wooden buildings stood on.

In short: Dan Evans was no Charlie Prince.

He didn't have to be.

A father to two boys, a husband to his wife, a veteran to his country, and now, a pain in the ass and thorn in the side of Ben Wade and his outlaw gang, the one man in the territory who was crazy enough to volunteer to take Ben the few days ride northwest out of Bisbee to the train station in Contention. The only son of a bitch with enough iron in his gut to tell Butterfield that he wasn't going to _take_ that two hundred dollars just to walk away.

It wasn't until that night out on the trail that Dan realized that he wasn't sure what side he was actually _on_.

_'You say one more word, and I'll cut you down right here.'_

Ben had smiled at him, an amused little smirk on his face that made Dan want to hit him so hard his head snapped back and his nose bled, but instead he hadn't, and he wasn't quite sure why until the outlaw had responded to his warning:

_'I like this side of you, Dan.'_

**Ben**

_"You ever read the Bible, Dan? I read it one time. I was eight years old. My daddy just got hisself killed over a shot of whiskey and my mama said, 'we're going back East to start over'. So she gave me a Bible, sat me down in the train station, told me to read it. She was gonna get our tickets. Well, I did what she said. I read that Bible from cover to cover. It took me three days. She never came back. "_

He _was_ the King, but instead of a golden and gilded crown on his head he wore a black hat. There was no sword at his side, because a well-oiled and cared for pistol could kill a man dead to rights from a lot further away than sharpened steel could even hope to try for.

 _'Be careful with that thing. That gun's got a curse on it,'_ Ben had told that boy - stupid, ignorant, dirty posse that they was, still wasn't polite not to warn them about what they was gettin' into - while up there at that camp. Of course, they'd gone ahead and strung him up anyway, Tucker laughing like a fool - stupid, _stupid_ boy - while they'd prodded him in the chest with those damn live wires and made him cringe.

Nobody ever made him hurt without paying for it.

It took a rescue - Dan Evans and that doctor, why the _fuck_ he agreed to ride along Ben never did think he'd know, and Butterfield and the Evans boy - to get him free from that damn posse. By the time the dust had cleared, Doc Potter was dead, Butterfield pissed off, and Dan Evans was giving him a _look_ that Ben couldn't quite make heads or tails of.

That was the thing, he realized, that he liked most about Dan. He was interesting; unpredictable, always keeping one step ahead of just what everyone else thought he _should_ do in any given situation, and more often than not he would prove their assumptions incorrect. Charlie Prince was loyal, and coldhearted, and Ben knew that he could always count on him in a situation to do what he was asked. He couldn't do that with Dan Evans.

(It took him awhile, but Ben Wade realized that he actually found that pretty damn likeable, about the rancher.)

****

Charlie

_"They're on the roof!"_

None of it made sense.

They had been holed up in the store and then they were on the rooftops, running - how the _hell_ did that son of a bitch Evans run with that bad leg anyway? - and he couldn't quite understand why Ben didn't jump down. He was leading the two of them. He could have gotten down, ducked, one of his boys could have taken Dan out with a bullet without a problem, why in the hell was he still running --

****

Dan

_"What time is it?"_

"'Bout ten past three."

"Where's the 3:10 to Yuma?"

"Runnin' late, I suppose."

They weren't running anymore. They were holed up in that dirty little shack on the end of town, right next to those train tracks. Only problem was the fact that there wasn't a damn train to be seen anywhere in sight. If that train didn't show up, those boys out there, stalkin' around in circles, were going to make things awful complicated.

(Not like they already weren't.)

Ben liked him, respected him - and Dan was finding himself realizing that he needed that respect from someone more than he cared to admit. It wasn't any secret that not too many folk in town thought all that highly of Evans - Hollander especially - but here was some _famous outlaw_ that realized that maybe there was more to that rancher than just a washed-up and burnt-out heart and soul.

If Ben had wanted to kill him, he'd have done it when they'd been wrestling on the floor --

****

Ben

It was easy enough to climb up onto the train car, even with the handcuffs around his wrists, and let himself be led into the small cell - both the other men moved aside on instinct, but he didn't sit down, not yet. He had to have the last word.

_"Well, you did it, Dan..."_

His eyes caught the motion before he could let the shout fall from his lips - _No!_ \- and the bullet slammed into the rancher with a sickening thud, the crack of gunfire mingling with lead ripping into flesh and bone.

Only Charlie didn't stop. He disobeyed a direct order and he fired another bullet. And another. And another. Dan hit the ground with another dull sound, dust stirred up by his body slumping into the dirt. The Marshal didn't even bother to stop Ben as he stepped out of that goddamn cell and climbed out of the train. He stared down at Evans.

(The light was already fading, behind his eyes.)

Then he looked at Charlie.

The boys passed his gunbelt up, and he held that pistol in his hand, and eyed the cross inlaid on the grip while he pondered something, the wheels turning in his head as he thought about another day at another train station, a worn book in his hands instead of a gun.

_Matthew 6:24 - No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other._

Ben lifted his eyes and curled his fingers around the grip, index finger brushing against the trigger. Charlie had his back turned - _stupid_ fool - but the silence between them made his Prince turn around. A heartbeat, and then another, before the bullet stuck the younger man in the gut before he could even pull his own gun. The rest of his boys hit earth like fallen rocks as he emptied the Hand of God, before he approached Charlie slowly.

He'd disobeyed Ben's order, and gone on to kill Evans anyway.

The final shot rang out crisp and clear over the quiet sound of the steam train idling on the tracks behind him, and Ben uncurled his fingers from that bone-white coat, allowing Charlie to hit the dirt just like the rest of his boys. He didn't even notice William with that gun still trained on him - didn't give a damn, to be honest - and just turned to climb back on that train.

As the engine tugged and the cars began to move, he settled in his seat and whistled sharply for his horse to follow, but his mind lingered in the dirt, thoughts mixed with the blood that was still soaking into the cold, arid dust.

Charlie wouldn't have lasted if Ben had gotten Evans into his gang; he was too territorial, protective of his position as the Boss' right-hand man. Him ending up dead was inevitable - that didn't mean Ben wished for a second or two that Prince wasn't dead, because you didn't end up the most _famous_ outlaw in the territory by living with regrets. There would be someone else to take Charlie's place.

(But, as that train rumbled on towards Yuma, Ben realized that there would never be another rancher as determined - not stubborn - unpredictable, and _interesting_ as that one-legged, irritating son of a bitch that was Dan Evans.)

 


End file.
